… why but I seem to have lost all of my motivation today.

It’s been rather flaky for several months, even years, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, but today, there it was – gone. And never called me “mother” either.

It’s not as if I didn’t have a good night either. I was in bed early, wasn’t interrupted too much, all of that kind of thing. Anyone would have thought that I’d have been ready for anything.

But at some point during the night, and I wish that I knew where it was, all of my “get up and go” must have got up and gone, leaving me behind. And so that was that.

It was an early night too. It didn’t take too long to finish everything off after I’d done my notes. And then I hauled myself off to bed, pushing STRAWBERRY MOOSE out of the way. He’s worse than a cat, monopolising everything around here.

And for once, I had a good night’s sleep and I hardly remember being awoken at all during the night. I had my musculation band around my thighs, but it’s no good if it isn’t doing the exercises. I have been hoping for dramatic results from it but if things carry on like this, it’ll be unlikely.

And who was it a couple of months ago complaining about his awful sleep?

When the alarm went off I fell out of bed and went to fetch the blood pressure tester to see where we are. Last night was 17.7/10.2 and this morning it was 16.3/9.6, and still no-one has told me what to do to try to reduce it to this mythical figure of 14.0/9.0

Following this, I dragged myself off into the kitchen for the medication, all 10 items of it (11 or even 12 if I need them). There are 5 (and maybe 6 or even 7) to be taken at night before going to bed, and that’s not including the painkillers that I’ve been prescribed but don’t take, so when I walk around, I rattle.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m not a fan of painkillers. They’ll kill the pain for sure, and make it easier for you to move around, but how much damage are you doing to yourself by continuing to put weight on whatever is damaged and that you can’t feel it?

At least, with a pain, you know that you have to take it easy, walk rather gingerly, or find a work-around.

Back in here I listened to the dictaphone to find out what’s upon it. And there wasn’t much. Iceland was playing Scotland in a World Cup elimination match, the finals of the heats or whatever. The score had been 4-2 for Scotland in the first heat at Hampden and in the second heat the Icelanders were leading 2-0 so would qualify for the final stages on “away goals”. Then an incident occurred in the penalty area and a penalty was awarded to Scotland which they scored. Everyone looking at it later from slow motion replays couldn’t see any contact that might have led to a foul. It was up to the adjudicators to say that he’d awarded it because of contact – even though it was only slight, it was still contact. An Icelandic football player went over and punched him three times in the face. There was an inquiry and a really lengthy suspension for the Icelandic player. Even the newspapers said “you can’t do that as a football player”.

And this is all very reminiscent of the 1977 incident involving Joe Jordan and Welsh defender David Jones where Jordan clearly handled the ball in the Welsh penalty area during a World Cup qualifying match.

The referee however gave Scotland a penalty from which Scotland scored and which effectively ended Wales’s chance of qualifying for Argentina 1978 to which Scotland went.

Scotland also went to the 1990 World Cup in Rome and a few days before the start, as I was driving down the A500 towards the M6 overbridge, a double-decker bus went past overhead on its way southwards, painted dramatically overall as a blue-and-white saltire for Scotland.

Scotland’s performance at that World Cup was quite dismal and they were eliminated early. And as I was driving down the A500 towards the M6 overbridge a few days after their final match, a double-decker bus went past overhead on its way northwards, painted dramatically overall as a blue-and-white saltire for Scotland

Things had obviously not gone well.

Things didn’t go well for me today either, as I mentioned. The nurse came on time to give me my injection and to take a blood sample, and then I was left on my own for a while. I should have done plenty of work but somehow I just couldn’t make a start and I don’t know why.

We all have days like those, that’s for sure, but I seem to be having more of them than most

It was only when the cleaner arrived to clean the apartment and I had to stay in my room here that I actually pushed on and now the notes for the radio programme that I started yesterday are complete.

The aim once that was finished was to start on choosing the music for the next programme but I actually fell asleep, and not once either but twice and once in an … errr … very embarrassing place.

It reminds me of one particular time in Montreal.

Originally, I used to stay outside the city at Dorval, catch the 202 bus to the DuCollege Metro Station and then the underground into the city. It wasn’t until i became ill that I took up lodgings in the city centre.

Anyway, the problem with being in a hotel outside the city is that if I was feeling tired, I couldn’t go back to my room for a lie-down and a coffee.

However I did have certain places where I could go for a rest, but was always on the lookout for others.

One day while I was exploring the Complexe Desjardins shopping centre in the rue St Catherine, I came across the public conveniences. Now they looked clean, comfortable and tidy, and with my jacket rolled up tightly to make a good pillow, I was really comfortable riding the porcelain horse and leaning against the cubicle wall asleep.

What I hadn’t taken into account was that to deter the homeless and the layabouts like me from loitering, they arranged for an automatic flush of the toilets every 5 minutes, which was about 30 seconds after I’d gone to sleep.

That was quite embarrassing.

So being rather late for tea I was quite starving too. But it was another delicious leftover curry with vegetables, rice and a naan bread cooked to perfection and as I said last week, I’ll eat that again.

Something else that I’ve repeated about my tea … "and on many occasions too" – ed … is that the idea of using couscous as part of the filler for the stuffing has made a real difference – and a positive one at that.

So what will tomorrow bring? Gotthold Lessing tells us that "better counsel comes overnight" and I do feel better after a good, relaxing night’s sleep. But I don’t seem to be having too many of those right now. The last time that I had eight hours sleep, it took me three days to have them

In the meantime, I shall have to be just like Ernest Hemingway who said "I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake".

And doesn’t that sound just like me?